The Third
by Maeve Leonard
Summary: Angst! Lots of it! Heh. Noin comes upon Quatre playing on the piano late at night...but why the sad tune? Non-yoai. Really bad fic. v.v


~* I really dislike this. A lot. Like, a lot. I wouldn't post it if I didn't spend time to write it. Plus, I don't see enough non-yoai stuff for my little Quatre. Heh. Has anyone else seen the chemistry he and Noin have on screen together? I didn't until it was pointed out to me. The Relena thing? Well, I just wanted an excuse to make him pissy. Heh. I hate the ending too. That just plain sucks. And...and...it sounds like everything else I've written. Blech. Well, its short. So I guess that's good. Anywho, R&R and all that jazz. I'm going to be rewriting the ending pretty soon so expect this piece of crap back up perdy soon. Oh! But I actually spell checked this one! Not that it did much for the peice. Yeah....well, if you haven't stopped reading yet....good luck! You'll need it.*~  
  
Disclaimer: Its not mine. Don't pay me.  
  
Note: There is a mention of the death of Trowa. At the time this takes place, Quatre doesn't know Trowa is alive. He's taking it rather well...considering...  
  
  
His fingers fell over the keys of the piano like a painter does the canvas. He painted beautiful worlds when he played. Star crossed lovers, faeries and elves, sunlight kissing dew stained grass blades......whatever it was that touched his heart at the moment. However, tonight he was distracted. Tonight...the lovers just didn't want to love. The faeries and the elves were sleeping long into the night. The sun refused to rise.   
"Quatre..." He heard a voice coo. Quatre paused in his playing to see who was approaching him.  
  
Lucrezia Noin. The guardian of Ms. Relena Peacecraft. For once, she wasn't in her uniform, which was something Quatre wasn't really use too. She was in her pajamas it looked like, yet even in sleep ware she still looked incredibly neat. A pair of baby blue pajama pants that touched her very toe nail and a bleach white, tight fitting T-shirt. Even her hair was neat, by Ms. Noin's standards. It fell over her one eye like an inky water fall, and flowed just the same. She idly brushed a stray piece away, and parted her little rose bud lips into a slight smile. In her left hand, she held a coffee mug. Steam rose from the tops of it and dangling off the edge of the rim Quatre saw the string of the tea bag.  
"Its beautiful, Quatre." She said as she walked toward him. "You have so much talent." Quatre laughed and shook his head, bringing his fingers back to the keys and starting the melodic playing once more.  
"I have enough..." He said with a smile. "That's all I need."  
  
Quatre Winner and Lucrezia Noin had no choice but to become friends. The two of them had spent so much time together that they either had to become friends or kill each other. Quatre was never one to make enemies very easily and Lucrezia Noin was never one to intentionally make enemies. They were wonderful as friends...they were each others sanity in the Cinq Kingdom. And you must understand, soldiers in a pacifist nation need all the sanity they could get. As much as Quatre tried to hide behind the mask of peace, he too was a bit uneasy without the simple comfort of a pistol under his pillow.   
  
She took a casual sip of her mug and leaned over to look at his hands.  
"What is it called? This peice I mean."  
"I don't know." He answered truthfully. "I've never heard it before." She smiled.  
"Then name it." Quatre closed his eyes for a moment, the smile creasing is gentle features. Noin smiled as she watched Quatre work. He looked almost angelic, bathed in the fair moonlight in the window. She couldn't help but compare him to the Angel Gabriel, coming to the virgin to tell her of the miracle....and of the curse. Oh how Quatre's mind worked and how his fingers fluttered...it was a therapy Noin longed for. He *was* her therapy...her escape. He made her forget so many things...  
"'The Third'...." He said quietly, pulling Noin gently from her thoughts.  
"I'm sorry?" He opened his eyes and glanced up at her with a grin.   
"I call it 'The Third.' Awful name, huh?" Noin shrugged.  
"Depends on what it means." Quatre sighed and followed his fingers down the keys. Pretty notes were all they were. Pretty little notes with no meaning at all. No purpose. There was nothing there, no soul, no love....nothing. Nothing but notes. Nothing but sounds. Nothing....nothing....nothing.....  
  
"It means..."   
  
Nothing.   
  
"It's....it's a story, I suppose." She took the edge of the piano bench as her seat and looked to him with loving, maternal eyes.  
"Can you tell me the story, Quatre?"  
  
There was no story. They were just words. Thoughts. Words and thoughts all meshed together into a bunch of sounds. Senseless cacophony. Rambalings...notes...words....  
  
Wouldn't this make a lovely aria?  
  
"Its about...three people." He said, his fingers trailing down the keys like a spider scurrying for its next meal. "Two of which who are in love."  
"Ah..." Said Noin, leaning her back against Quatres arm. "I know the story well. Two lovers who live only to serve the other, right? And the jealous suitor gets tired of living in the shade so he makes all life hell for them." Quatre shook his head quickly.   
"No, no not at all Ms. Noin!" He looked to her, his fingers never faltering. "They are two people who are very much in love, yes. But not with each other. You see, the girl..." He looked back to his keys. Stark white keys. Emotionless white keys. "The girl is in love. She's in love with the wrong boy. For, the other boy, doesn't know how to love. Its hardly his fault, you know, because...he was never taught how to love, exactly, like you should." These were his words. She was his pen. The keys were his paper. The piano was his diary. And he would immortalize them all.  
"Love like you should?" She turned to look at him with a slight chuckle. "My dear Quatre, you should know very well that there is no 'should' and 'shouldn't' when it comes to love." He sighed.   
"Yeah, I know. I had the wrong word. I'm sorry." He took in a deep breath. "Love her...the way...she should be loved." He nodded, happy with his explanation. "Yes. For you see, she should be loved, cherished, adored, like any beautiful goddess would be! And...and the third boy? He knows this." These were his words. She was his vessel.  
"I see..." She said, her voice echoing in the mug as she took another sip. "I see how this goes. The girl is on love with the wrong boy. Yet this wrong boy doesn't seem to notice how much she really cares for him."   
"Yes. Yes that's exactly it!"  
"But the third is afraid to tell the woman how he feels, for fear of rejection.."  
"Oh. No...not like that." He sighed. "No, he wants her to be happy. He wants...he wants what she wants. So he does what he can to bring them together. He...he becomes the match maker, bringing them together."  
"I see."  
"But he knows he shouldn't! Because he knows he can make her much happier! And yet...the other one...makes her so happy..." These were his tears. His tears would stain the ink. The ink would strain the diary. Noin shifted in her seat so that she'd face the blonde. She set her mug down on top of the piano and rested her hand on his shoulder, so not to disturb his playing. The mug at made her palms pleasingly warm...and Quatre had to admit he enjoyed it.  
"Quatre..." She breathed. "Are you in love with Ms. Relena?" The music stopped with two very wrong cords. Shattered. The ink smudged the diary. The entry is ruined.  
"....yes." Was all he could reply with. "I love her. I am 'The Third.' I am the one who deserves her but could never make her happy. I play these songs only for her. I came to the Cinq Kingdom because I knew she would be here. I knew that she would be the one to greet us. She would be the first to throw her arms around us into a peaceful, wonderful embrace! But...." Quatre took his shaking hands off of the keys. Bitterness rose in Quatres voice, and a slight growl was heard between his words. "But she didn't come to 'us.' She didn't embrace 'us.' She came only to ebrace _him_! Only to speak with_ him_! I was just his shadow...." He hated Heero Yuy. More than he's hated anything in his life. More than hated war. More than he hated bloodshed. He would love to shed Heero Yuys blood. A sick smile creased his face as he brushed away defiant tears. "Oh, but I smiled for her. I smiled for the both of them. This is what she wanted more than anything. Heero. Heero Yuy. Heero who goes against everything she believes in! A soldier! A warrior! A heartless, soulless droid who wishes for nothing but war!" He slammed his fist into the keys with a horrid scream...fighting back his own pathetic tears. Soldiers don't cry. Boys don't cry. Heero wouldn't cry. Pacifism is not about being weak. Tears are the scarlet letter of the weak. Bloody tears. Bloody lies.   
Any ugly sound emitted from the piano, as Quatre continued to beat his bitterness onto the ivory keys. It echoed off the wall and around them, wrapping them both in a tight, suffocating, hateful blanket...bringing them no warmth.  
Noin, despite this rare burst of rage, ran her fingers through his hair baby thin hair, resting her chin on his shoulder.   
"Shhh..." She hissed gently into his ear. "Quatre, please don't. Anger is not very becoming on your."  
"No..." He growled, making his fist tighter into his palm. His very knuckles turned to a ghastly pale, and Noin saw a few drops of blood creep through his fingers and onto the immaculate, bleach white keys. Staining them. Destroying them. "No, I won't be angry. I'm not allowed to be angry, am I?" Noin shook her head.  
"No. You're not."   
  
His chin quivered slightly, as he fought back his years. He had seen more than most men in their fifties, but Quatre was still a boy. He's killed more men than could ever be counted. But still, he was just a child. He took his trembling, bleeding hands from their place and brought them to his face, burrowing them in shame. Shame. Weakling. Child. He sobbed, more than he had ever sobbed in his life. He cried more than he had when he found out he had no soul. He cried more than when his father was slaughtered before his eyes. He cried more than when he relized he killed his best friend. Quatre cried...as only a child could.  
  
And Lucrezia Noin, her smile never fading from her lips, wrapped her slender arms around the tiny boy, and pulled him close to her chest. She held him close to her body, humming softly to him a gentle lullaby. Something to drain away the pain his peice of "The Third" brought onto him. How ironic, it seemed to her, how he so reminded her of her own Angel Gabriel. Yet here it was, sitting on this moonsoaked piano bench, that it was the Virgin herself, wipping the selfish tears off of the angels face. That he was he who wept for the curse...and not the Virgin herself. She held him closer still, his own tears the only thing between them....his own tears...staining the music.   
  
The song had ceased. The music had ended, unfinished. No finale. No climax. There was nothing to complete it, not satisfying ending for the audience. They've listen, their breath drawn in till they thought their longs would burst! And so they may, for there is no relieved ending for them to finally exhale. A certain sadness in the room, when there is no resolution. No where for the hero to go. No one for the hero to run too. There is only one thing more depressing than a composition not finished. It is the song, the poor song, who is left with no singer.  
~Fin


End file.
